Who’s Shelidon

Hi Sophia,
unfortunately, my nickname doesn’t have anything to do with that show.

Thanks for reaching out, Tom: I’ll answer you via PM.

Dear Cin,

thank you for your comment, and I’m sorry you couldn’t post it under the original article because of someone else’s rudeness: I’ll post a permalink to this, because I think everyone should read it.

I’m a firm believer in what you wrote, down to the part where you state that “everything is political”. It indeed is.
And you’re absolutely right and the problem lies in both the original music piece, filled with the exoticist quirks in vogue at the time, the way Disney decided to implement that, and the contemporary depictions.

I’ll try and break down what I think, starting from the premise that I 100% agree with you and I think you’re 100% right.

I think the music falls short as the so-called Orientalists painters did: it depicts something exotic for the sake of the exotic, with a vague allusion of what the author thinks the flavour of the culture is, but without any consultancy from actual people involved and without a real study into the musical culture of the countries involved.
It’s true, even if it doesn’t make it right, that the ballet features *sweets*, and not people, and if Tchaikovsky is mocking other cultures he’s also mocking his own, since there’s a Russian Dance between the Chinese dance and the Danish one. Still, the so-called Russian Dance is “Trepak”, which is a traditional dance, while all the other dances are made-up and flavoured pieces.
One usually says that “it was a different time”. Was it, though? The Nutcracker was performed in 1892 and all it takes is a brief research to find out that Russia and China were in a splendid relationship, back than, and a person like Tchaikovsky could have easily reached for Chinese musicians, if he really wanted to get it right. He didn’t. He didn’t recognise the need to.

Disney has even less excuses. The Studio could have done what the ballet is originally depicting, and put sweets on the screen: what we call the Chinese Dance is in fact the Tea Dance, the Arabian Dance is the Coffee Dance, the Spanish Dance is the Chocholate Dance. They decided to do otherwise and enforce the stereotype, and I have no sources on whether the conversation even occurred.
I can only imagine how people like Wah Ming Chang might have felt and what they might have gone through in terms of bullying, while working on the same production.
(for those who are not familiar with Wah Ming Chang, he was a Chinese-American designer, sculptor, and artist working at Disney and he designed the snowflake fairies: I talked about him here.

Regarding contemporary depictions, it really is beyond me: why can’t we break free from the “Chinese” part and simply stick to the “Tea” part? Do they want something funny and light? Yes, they can use the very same music to mock the British and their obsession with tea. The Dance Magazine has a beautiful 2019 article by Phil Chan And Georgina Pazcoguin titled “A Fresh Cup of Tea: How to Make Nutcracker More Inclusive”, with some ideas on the matter. People can find it here.

For those who are not familiar with the controversy, here’s a brief selection of articles:
– “As ‘Nutcracker’ Returns, Companies Rethink Depictions of Asians”, published on the New York Times in November 2021 here;
– “Toning Down Asian Stereotypes to Make ‘The Nutcracker’ Fit the Times”, still by the New York Times but published in 2018 (note how the tone changes) is available here;
– “Sorry, ‘The Nutcracker’ Is Racist” published on The New Republic in 2014 is here;
– “Op-Ed: ‘Yellowface’ in ‘The Nutcracker’ isn’t a benign ballet tradition, it’s racist stereotyping” published on The Los Angeles Times in 2018 is here.
And I could go on.

Once again, thank you for your comment and for bringing to the attention this important subject.

Of course hedgehogs are political, when they’re written into a story that’s also a social commentary,but of course I respect your willingness of not seeing these kinds of analysis and discourses. I hope you find more enjoyable content elsewhere.